


Sense and Sanity

by bewareofitalics



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare, Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 04:42:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/820101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bewareofitalics/pseuds/bewareofitalics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All roads lead to Wittenberg, even when they start in Illyria.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sense and Sanity

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2005.

When he was no longer needed in Elsinore, Horatio returned to Wittenberg. The familiarity of the place did not comfort him as much as he had hoped. Many of the people he had known before had since left, and the ones that remained all wanted to know of Hamlet. Horatio answered the questions as simply as he could and tried to disappear. He had quite a talent for disappearing – he was accustomed to acting as a shadow, and in his mourning, he dressed the part. He drifted from class to class, tried to smile when it was appropriate, tried to keep his mind on books that somehow seemed much less important than they had before.

Part of being inconspicuous is not being conspicuously absent, and so occasionally Horatio would join a group of students for a night at a nearby tavern. He would sit in a corner, usually, and watch with a detached almost-smile as his classmates made drunken fools of themselves.

Sometimes there would be a professional fool in the tavern, singing and joking and collecting coins. Horatio laughed when he could and tossed coins when his classmates could not. Some fools were better than others. Some were little more than natural, while some spoke with true wit and the occasionally subtle sneer.

One night there was a fool who did not even attempt to hide the sneer. The students, in their drunken haze, did not notice. Nor did they notice the melancholy words to the merry tunes the fool sang. 

Horatio, however, did. “You sing well,” he said as he handed over coins for both himself and a comatose classmate.

The fool pocketed the coins. “Thank you, sir, ‘tis good to know one at least is listening.”

“I do little but listen,” said Horatio.

“So I noticed.”

“I did not think I was so noticeable.”

The fool shrugged and took a gulp from an abandoned mug of ale. “You are the only one not trying to be noticed, it seems, and that doth make you noticeable.” Another gulp. “And sorrow is drawn to sorrow.”

“You know sorrow, then,” said Horatio.

“I do.”

“And something of the workings of the world, I think.”

“Ay, that too.”

“Will you sit?” asked Horatio, gesturing to a chair across from him. “If you would… it hath been long since I have talked with someone of sense.”

“For sense you go to a fool?” asked the fool. But he sat.

“In such a world as this, sense most oft is found where one would not think to look.”

“You think not well of the world?”

“The world is mad.”

“And you have seen this madness, not merely found it in books.”

“I have seen…” Horatio made a sound that was almost a laugh. “I have seen,” he repeated softly. He looked up and smiled at the fool. “Forgive my rudeness. I am Horatio, late of Denmark.”

“Of Denmark no longer?”

“I have no reason now to return.”

“Your sorrow.”

“Ay.” Horatio tried to smile again. “And you, good fool?”

“I am Feste,” said the fool. “Of nowhere.”

“And that is your sorrow? That you have no home?”

“Nay,” said Feste, “sorrow only comes when one is of a place. Without attachment, one may be happy.”

“But you are not happy?”

Feste shrugged. “I am still too much attached.”

“A worthy subject for sorrow, then.”

“It doth suffice.”

Horatio pulled out another coin. “For your time,” he said. 

“Keep it, ‘tis payment enough to find a sane man in such a place.”

“I find sense in a fool, you find sanity in… well. Mayhap we both have had too much to drink.” Horatio idly traced the rim of his mug.

“Or mayhap ‘tis merely that folly is sense and madness is sanity,” said Feste, watching Horatio’s fingers.

“It may well be.” 

A young man who Horatio vaguely recognized from one of his classes stumbled over to the table. “Come, sirrah, another song!” he said.

The sneer, which had left Feste’s lips, returned. “But of course, my lord, I could not refuse such a gracious demand.”

The student laughed. “Excellent. Now sing, I prithee!”

As Feste moved to leave the table, Horatio caught the sleeve of his dusty motley. “Will you be here again tomorrow night?” he asked.

For a moment the sneer was replaced by something softer. “I will,” said Feste. “If I am not somewhere else.”


End file.
